As electronic apparatus configurations progress in performance and compactness it becomes more difficult to control heat dissipation where there are individual components that produce locallized heat. This is particularly the situation in the portable computer technology where, as there is progress with greater performance, the heat generated by certain individual small components such as a semiconductor chip can generate so much heat in such a localized place that it is becoming increasingly difficult to extract or otherwise control. Gains achieved in portability, component density and performance in electronic apparatus are usually accompanied by increasing difficulty in removing localized heat from an individual high heat producing component by simply using the traditional physical mechanisms of conduction, convection and radiation.
Thermoelectric cooling devices using the Peltier principle have been receiving increasing attention in the art. Such devices, that are usually made of a telluride compound, respond to an electrical current by producing a locallized cooler region. A number of structures and applications of the devices are described in an article by C. Wu, in Science News, Sept. 6, 1997, pages 152 and 153. Such devices however, at this stage of the art have not been employed in situations where the carrying of high wattage has been necessary. They have been used in computers in sensing type applications in where the Peltier effect locallized cool region is used to indicate the occurrence of an event. An example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,286.